Electrek Green Energy Brief: A daily technical, financial and political review/analysis of important green energy news.

Pope says humanity will ‘go down’ if it does not address climate change – Pope Francis said the recent spate of hurricanes should prompt people to understand that humanity will “go down” if it does not address climate change and history will judge those who deny the science on its causes. “If we don’t turn back, we will go down,” Francis told reporters on Sunday on the plane returning from Colombia. This planet has suffered massive animal die offs in the past as a result of changes in the atmosphere. Humans are not special, other than that we can clearly see what is happening and we have a chance to react. We do have a choice.

Goldman Sachs to purchase US$300 million in home solar loans from Mosaic – Mosaic, at one point, was trying to do home loans for solar power via crowd funding. You’d log in, offer $25 or more to a specific project as a private individual, and you’d get to own a small piece of someone else’s solar power project. Later on you’d get paid back as the homeowner paid off their solar power. Lots of legal complexities made it a challenge for that to continue growing – plus I’d guess not enough people put their cash down. I believe in the model still. Either way, Goldman Sachs buying solar power home loans means Goldman sees good profit in solar in the long game.

Used solar panels: are they right for you? – First off, I had no idea that used solar panels were even a market. Secondly, the article isn’t really deep in any details – it’s just a good headline with a few paragraphs to get some attention – but its enough for me to talk about it. Just like car batteries are considered ‘old’ and ‘used’ when they hit 80% of their original output, solar panels after 25 years would be out of warranty and old (definintely used) at 80%. But a solar panel at 80% is still a solar panel that is producing electricity…and why not? Anyone ever see them for sale? What did they cost?

Used solar panels remind me of this article – Repairing solar modules: sometimes easier than buying new ones – As solar panels age, and the original manufacturer of these panels stop making those specific models, it becomes harder to replace a single panel within a larger installation. What are you going to do? You’re not going to build a whole new installation – but you need a certain number of panels in your system to make it run best. There is a market for solar panel repair.

Amazon puts online New Jersey’s largest rooftop solar installation – Roughly 20,000 Hanwha Q-Cells PV modules are mounted on Panel Claw Polar Bear III racking on the roof of an Amazon warehouse in Carteret, New Jersey, across the water from Staten Island, for a total of 4.98 MW-AC. A 30 acre rooftop full of solar panels – that’s a gigantic roof. Really cool to see such a large amount of commercial space covered – and its a new record for size in New Jersey. As a commercial/industrial solar developer having the opportunity to even walk a roof of this size would be great. Must have been a lot of technical challenges to cover.

Shell Retail Looks to the Future With Car Charging, Clean Fuels – Royal Dutch Shell Plc wants 20 percent of income from its retail forecourts to come from vehicles that don’t burn diesel or gasoline, as the company anticipates an accelerating transition to clean energy over the coming decade. Shell set up its first hydrogen refueling station in the U.K. earlier this year and will install its first electric car charging point later this month. This is one of the global oil majors. They’re looking beyond petroleum. Align this with China saying they’re considering banning fossil fuel vehicles and we see a continual change going on.